8/12/2010 @ 9:00AM

The Value Of Dissent

In all that it does, a university (and certainly its president) needs to have a clear understanding of the special place that it occupies in society. The university stands, in words E. M. Forster once applied to the Greek poet Cavafy, “at a slight angle to the universe.”

It is a most unusual institution. In its openness to ideas of all kinds and in its nonpartisan, independent character, it is fundamentally different from government agencies, churches, business organizations, labor organizations, political parties, philanthropies, and social clubs. Its purpose is not to indoctrinate but to educate–and in that process to encourage “a hundred flowers to bloom.” It has important responsibilities to society but it discharges them in important degree by means that are often as likely to provoke as to reassure.

Today, almost all leading colleges and universities in this country enjoy a degree of autonomy, and especially freedom from the application of political as well as religious tests, that is distinctive when viewed historically or compared with universities in many other parts of the world. The historian Lawrence Stone reminded us that “the old ideal” of indoctrination held sway for a very long time, and for very good reasons. “After all,” Stone wrote, “whenever society is precarious–and it usually is–there is inevitably a demand that dissidents and heretics be suppressed.”

“The new ideal,” to create open and adaptable minds ready to question and challenge established facts and conventional wisdom, did not really take hold in this country until the early part of the nineteenth century. “I want to stress,” Stone said, “how novel this [the new ideal] was, and how rare and fragile… For most of recorded history, those in authority have thought it wiser to create closed minds than open minds, to educate students to conform to traditional values and to follow the accepted wisdom.”

It is worth remembering that at the time of World War I, Presidents John Grier Hibben of Princeton and Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia committed their universities to a “war policy” and did all that they could to repress dissent. We can not assume that these arguments are over. The McCarthy era of loyalty oaths and investigations of faculty beliefs occurred in the 1950s, and the activities of some radical student groups in the late 1960s remind us that threats to genuine openness can come from the Left as well as from the Right.

Our insistence today on openness and independence is rooted in a distinct educational philosophy that embraces critical thinking and active debate as the best ways of pursuing truth, correcting old errors, and developing new ideas. This philosophy stems not just from an abstract sense that it is intrinsically the right way to educate people in a democracy, but also from a powerful utilitarian argument. A country that wants to be on the research frontier, and to attract the best faculty and the best graduate and undergraduate students from all over the world, will not succeed unless faculty and students alike know that they are free to explore ideas of every kind.

Widespread acceptance of this pragmatic argument among government leaders, business executives, and others interested in economic progress has had a great deal to do with bringing trustees and legislators to accept the need for unfettered freedom to teach and study as one thinks best. The US philosophy of education, with its emphasis on openness to ideas of every kind, creates a strong presumption against the university as an institution taking positions on external issues of a political, social, or economic character that do not relate directly to its educational mission.

The university–and its president–can and should speak out on matters central to its own functioning as an educational institution, such as free speech (loyalty oaths) and admissions policies (affirmative action), but these have a directly relevant educational content that differentiates them from broad political and social issues. One of the hardest things for many people to understand is the powerful complementarity between the rights of individual faculty members and students to speak out strongly on issues of all kinds and the need for institutional restraint in addressing broad political and social issues. The university should not be the critic itself, but rather the home of the critic.

Annoying as dissenters can be to those in authority, there is no denying their value to a university community. In an academic setting especially, propositions of all kinds need to be challenged, for only in this way can ideas be sharpened and errors corrected. A campus free of dissent would be a boring place, and not the best environment for genuine learning.

The often-strident debates over divestment, for example, were great learning opportunities for students holding diverse views, as well as for others in the campus community. In my years in Nassau Hall, I met and got to know innumerable dissenters, of all ages, stations, and positions. I learned that listening carefully, and trying to understand other points of view, paid big dividends. Policies could be improved, sometimes significantly, by taking criticisms to heart. But of course listening and agreeing are not the same thing, and very often critics left my office disappointed that I continued to disagree with them–and many no doubt left convinced that I just didn’t get it. Be that as it may, engaging in genuine exchanges of opinion, and defending your own point of view, is just as necessary as patience in hearing someone out. Taking critics seriously, and responding to them thoughtfully, is a sign of respect. I had the pleasure of experiencing this two-way street with my favorite dissenter, Sally Frank.

Frank, a member of the Class of 1980, was best known as a determined opponent of the all-male eating clubs. In February 1979, she filed a discrimination complaint with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights against the three remaining all-male eating clubs. A legal battle then went on for thirteen years and ended up in the New Jersey Supreme Court. Frank eventually won her case. Combating the all-male clubs was by no means her only cause. She was also a zealous advocate of divestment and an opponent of many university policies that she regarded as too “conservative.” But, to her great credit, her dissent was never personal and she always treated her opponents (including the president!) and the university itself with respect. She was extremely loyal and never failed to show up for reunions and to march with her class in the P-rade. She knew that Princeton was a great university, but she also believed that it could be much better. Strongly criticized by some students and alumni, Frank was praised by others. In June 1990, the Alumni Council bestowed on Frank one of its annual Awards for Service to Princeton.

The former secretary of health, education, and welfare, John Gardner, in a memorable turn of phrase, had warned against both “unloving critics and uncritical lovers.” The Alumni Council citation correctly labeled Frank a “loving critic.” I had as a colleague in the administration during Frank’s time at Princeton an indefatigable free spirit who never tired of reminding me that constructive dissent is a form of loyalty. We should not be Pollyannaish and think (or pretend) that all campus dissenters are such generous spirits or as constructive, but he was right, and Sally Frank exemplified his message.

William G. Bowen is president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. His many books include The Shape of the River and Crossing the Finish Line.